This invention relates to a system for improving the combustion efficiency of internal combustion engines.
The present invention improves combustion efficiency and reduces polluting combustion by-products of internal combustion engines by reforming the hydrocarbon fuel to render it more readily and completely combustible. This is accomplished by a pre-ignition fuel treatment system in which large, complex hydrocarbon molecules are “cracked” or broken down into smaller, simpler molecules. These simpler hydrocarbons are more readily combustible and produce fewer combustion by-products. Reformed or “cracked” hydrocarbons are also rich in ions and free radicals, which are highly reactive and hence highly combustible. Hydrocarbon “cracking” is a highly endothermic reaction, which means it requires a large amount of energy to complete the reaction. Therefore, hydrocarbon cracking must take place under conditions of high temperature and high pressure. The cracking process is facilitated by the presence of a catalyst.
The present invention takes advantage of the high temperature, high pressure environment of the engine's exhaust gases to create a reaction zone in which the hydrocarbon molecules of the fuel are cracked. The hydrocarbon cracking reaction is facilitated by the insertion into the reaction zone of an iron rod. Under the high temperature conditions of the reaction zone, the surface of the iron rod becomes oxidized. It is known that iron oxides act as catalysts for various hydrocarbon cracking processes, as for example, in the hydrocarbon reforming processes taught by Setzer, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,451,578. As ionized fuel molecules and atoms are produced during the cracking process, moreover, their motion around the rod generates an electromagnetic field which magnetizes the iron in the rod. As the iron rod itself magnetizes, the rod generates its own magnetic field, which further ionizes the fuel and accelerates the motion of the ionized particles. These accelerated ions then generate a still stronger electromagnetic field, which in turn induces even greater magnetism in the iron rod. Thus, the electrical-magnetic interaction of the ionized fuel and the iron rod becomes a feedback loop that drives the process toward ever greater ionization until the fuel is transformed into a plasma.
The prior art contains two patents which teach the use of a reactor rod in pre-ignition reformation of hydrocarbon fuel. These are Pantone, U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,601, and Jonson, U.S. Pat. No. 7,194,984. While both of these patents have superficial similarities to the present invention, they are both riddled with technical misconceptions which lead to fatal design flaws. In Pantone, a hydrocarbon fuel is volatilized and the vapor is drawn through a thermal preheater mounted inside an engine exhaust pipe. The thermal preheater is configured as a reactor tube having a reactor rod mounted concentrically within it, so that the vapor flows through an annular plenum around the rod. The downstream side of the reactor tube is pneumatically connected to the engine's intake manifold, such that the partial vacuum of the intake manifold extends through the reactor tube and draws the fuel vapor into the intake manifold.
Although the inventor of this apparatus speculates that some type of molecular cracking takes place in the reactor tube, he candidly admits to being clueless as what is taking place and why. While the inventor has apparently stumbled upon some things that work, he stumbles over some other things that don't. He states, for example, that the composition of the reactor rod is of no consequence, and he asserts that even a generic ceramic reactor rod will do (4:35-39). But if the reactor rod serves no catalytic function, then the supposed “cracking” process must be purely thermal cracking, which requires an extremely elevated level of temperature and pressure far above the range found in automobile exhaust.
And, in fact, the inventor's own observations confirm that no cracking takes place in his reactor tube, but instead the volatized fuel is partially combusted. The inventor relates that his reactor tube becomes quite a bit hotter than could be attributed to the heat transfer from the exhaust gases (5:25-43). This means that an exothermic reaction—one that releases heat—is taking place. Cracking is an endothermic reaction—one that absorbs heat. It follows that the Pantone apparatus does not render the fuel more combustible by cracking it, but instead renders it less combustible by partially burning it in the reactor tube.
The reason that the performance of Pantone's apparatus is indifferent to the composition of the reactor rod is that he makes the annular plenum between the reactor rod and the reactor tube too large. The patent specifies a range of 0.035-0.04 inches for this annular plenum (6:6-9), which is more than twice as wide as what is needed. A much more constricted annular plenum is necessary for two reasons: (1) to bring more fuel molecules into direct contact with the surface of the reactor rod, so as to maximize the electro-chemical interaction between the rod and the fuel, and (2) to accelerate the fuel molecules, thereby increasing their kinetic energy to a level at which molecular cracking can occur. On the other hand, the wider annular plenum in Pantone's reactor tube is more conducive to the partial combustion process which, unbeknownst to the inventor, is actual going on there.
In the Jonson patent, we have another instance of an inventor groping in the dark because he doesn't understand the underlying science. Consequently, although Jonson corrects some of Pantone's errors, he goes on to make some errors of his own which equally frustrate the purpose of the invention. While Jonson baldly asserts that his treated fuel has “characteristics of a cold plasma” (3:6-7), it becomes clear from reading the specification that he has no idea what a “plasma” actually is. Unable to credibly claim that his process yields an actual plasma, in the scientific sense of that word, Jonson creates his own totally circular definition: “the term plasma fuel as used herein is simply used as a title to refer to fuel produced as described herein” (3:9-11). In other words, the treated fuel is “plasma”, provided that “plasma” is defined to mean the treated fuel.
Unfortunately for Jonson, the enormity of his logical fallacies is matched by that of his technical fallacies. According to his specification, fuel enters one end of his reactor tube as liquid droplets and exits the other end as plasma (3:32-39). Since plasma is an ionized vapor, a liquid can only become a plasma if is first vaporized and then ionized. Yet Jonson's “plasma fuel” is neither ionized nor vaporized. In fact, the patent asserts that cavitation of the “plasma fuel” occurs in a low pressure area of the reactor tube (4:10-15), which necessarily implies that the “plasma fuel” remains in a liquid state, since cavitation can only occur in a liquid. And the patent claims clearly designate the “plasma fuel” as being in a liquid state, since they repeatedly describe the final step of the patented process as “introducing the droplets to the combustion process” (8:35, 9:10, 9:28, 9:51, 10:1, 10:18, 10:36, 10:59).
Although the Jonson patent states an unsupported belief that the treated fuel is provided to the engine “in a significant state of ionization”, it describes no process by which such ionization can occur. Moreover, since the treated fuel remains in a liquid state, the only way it can be “ionized” (loosely speaking) is in the sense that its droplets acquire an electrical charge. But electrically charged liquid fuel droplets are no more combustible than electrically neutral droplets. Ionization must occur at the molecular-atomic level in order to affect chemical reactivity and combustion characteristics of the fuel.
While Jonson, unlike Pantone, gets it right in requiring that the reactor rod be a magnetic material and specifying a narrowly constrained annular plenum between the reactor rod and reactor tube, he still finds other ways to go wrong. His specification calls for lowering the temperature inside the reactor tube, even to the extent of using refrigeration (3:56-65, 12:22-23). The specification also calls for reducing the pressure within the reactor tube to 250 mmHg (less than one-third of atmospheric), even using a vacuum generator to that end (5:45-48, 6:7-10, 8:18-20, 8:5-63). Both of these features completely negate any potential for hydrocarbon cracking to occur in Jonson process, since cracking requires high temperature and high pressure.
Jonson's disclosure superficially resembles the present invention insofar as it uses the magnetic field induced in the reactor rod and the constrained annular plenum in the reactor tube to accelerate the fuel flow around the reactor rod. But the big difference is in what is being accelerated in each case. The Jonson process is designed to accelerate liquid droplets of fuel (see claims 1-3). But acceleration of liquid droplets has no effect on molecular energy within the droplets, and hence contributes nothing to the chemical reformation of the fuel hydrocarbons which is the ostensible goal of the process. In the present invention, on the other hand, it is the ionized molecules of the fuel that are accelerated, and this has the immediate effect of increasing molecular kinetic energy and temperature, thereby inducing molecular cracking of the fuel hydrocarbons.
The most important distinction between the present invention and the Pantone and Jonson patents is the total absence in the prior art reactor rods of a catalytic material. Without such a catalyst, hydrocarbon cracking simply cannot occur in the temperature range of engine exhaust gases. Consequently, the prior art fails to disclose an apparatus and process capable of cracking hydrocarbon fuel and converting it into a genuine plasma so as to truly improve the fuel's combustibility and increase the overall combustion efficiency of the internal combustion engine in which the fuel is burned. As will now be explained in some detail herein, the present invention offers precisely these capabilities.